Beaucatcher Foray

Date: August 1, 2017Leader: Mike Hopping

Someone forgot to tell the weather gods to rain on Beaucatcher mountain this past week. Conditions were dusty dry but pleasantly cool. Seventeen club members, including rare appearances by Whitey Hitchcock and Jackie Schieb’s grandson Reid (off to begin college in a few weeks), made the best of the conditions and managed to collect 39 species of identifiable fungi. Two of these were the seldom-seen Amanita pelioma and Russula albonigra, a blackening Russula that bruises directly black without an intermediate red phase.

The find of the day belonged to Patrick Ober (until I stole it from him for identification purposes). He was collecting a sample of Velvet-footed Pax, including the rotted wood context. Somewhere along the way he happened to notice a few tiny structures shaped like paper wasp nests hanging down on stalks from the exposed wood. The largest was all of 4 mm in diameter. With the assistance of 10x magnification, pores were evident on the bottom surface. Coltriciella dependens is so small and inconspicuous that we might never again record it on a club foray [see note below]. Great job, Patrick!

Note: Predictions about mushrooms are notoriously risky – Charlotte Caplan found it four days later on the Madison County foray! But she would probably not have noticed it but for Mike’s report.